The invention relates to an aircraft wing, and to a panel for use in an aircraft wing.
The trailing edge panels of aircraft wings are conventionally fastened to the wing skin along their leading edges with buttstraps. Those buttstraps help to secure the trailing edge panels in place and keep their leading edges in close alignment with the trailing edges of the wing skin. However, the buttstraps also transfer strains (both bending and thermal) from the wing box to the leading edge of the trailing edge panel. One approach to dealing with that transfer of strain has been to modify the trailing edge panels to accommodate the strain, for example, by designing the trailing edge panel to be generally of carbon fibre composite but to have a glass fibre composite leading edge (glass fibre composite having a greater elasticity than carbon fibre composite). However, such panels are complex to manufacture.